Day Fifty Seven Part III

Yesterdays Meals:
BF--egg beaters
Snack--orange
Lunch--LoRusso's Chicken Cesar but I had some crackers with olive oil, and butter
Snack--orange
Dinner--San Si Sushi.....Rainbow Roll with a small salad. I ate little of the salad
Dessert--one Oatmeal cookie and half cup of Go Lean with my Almond Breeze

Day Fifty-Seven Part II

When we act obsessively, when are consumed by something that is bad for us, it is called addiction. But when the obsession goes to something positive it is a passion.

I am learning folks. I did not expect this to be easy and fun all the time. I am digging at the root of my issues which are binge eating, drinking etc. These addictions, I will call them, are my coping mechanism when stress hits. Now instead of "laying down" and watching TV, I need to get up off my rump and walk etc.

I am a person who is on a highway. I do fine if no one else is on the highway, and there are no exits, or billboards. But when I hit a stretch of distractions (pot holes, bad drivers etc metaphorically), I allow them to become excuses for getting off the road. Instead I need healthy rest stops where I can get out and stretch etc. These rest stops in my case would be, reading, writing, playing with the kids, exercise etc.

So the goal is to consciously choose the passion over the addiction. Or make the "good behaviors" the release or become my new addictions. Retrain the brain.

I cannot solve the past but I can avoid the bad triggers and make them into guns, with a safety.

I am very tough on myself. Because of my childhood, see earlier blogs in January, I try very hard to be a good husband, parent, employee. So I struggle within that balance and I knock myself for not being perfect because I want my adult life to not be like my childhood. And when I beat on myself, I run to the poor behaviors.

Here in lies the Phoenix piece. The focus on staying "in the game" and not letting the distractions take me off course. And rising out of the ashes of my past wings blazing.

Fifty-Seven

Saturday weigh-in........239lbs.

I have a lot to say and I will blog again later today. I will be writing on Sunday's as well. Obviously it is Bill's "Come to Jesus Party."

Needless to say, I have many things going on in my head.

Off to the gym

Fifty-Six

My dear friend Katie sent me a couple of emails yesterday in a dialogue about my eating habits. And she can't be any more on target. I am being lazy and sloppy. The whole purpose of the blog is to keep me mindful of my bad habits.

I am committing myself to writing about what I honestly eat everyday. I have been inconsistent in sharing that. I know that if I write it down, I have nowhere to hide.

Katie is 9 months pregnant and runs faithfully. I feel like I am pregnant but I sit around and eat bon bons. Ha Ha. Not really. But I do have a tendency to let myself "look the other way" when certain situations arise.

For instance, when I was on this supplier training, I could have easily had the turkey sandwich, removed the bread, eaten the lettuce and tomato with no mayo or cheese.

I have to be more consciously offensive.

You will be seeing my habits again.

Yesterday:

BF--fruit plate (no grapes), and small cheese danish
L--chicken Cesar salad with Tom's Balsamic Vinegarette
D-Suz made lean beef chili w/chedder cheese. 1 bowl. 10 little Triscuit triangles.
DSRT--3 oatmeal cookies....yea I know Katie.............

Day Fifty-Five

Richmond is a city of tremendous history, but I will never get the chance to really look at the history because I am in sales training.

No, I did not make it to the gym. But as an unheathly trade off, no breakfast. Lunch was a turkey sandwich and dinner was St. Louis Style Ribs and four drinks. Lots of socializing with the supplier.

What is it about St. Louis Ribs? I never hear about them on the food channel or anywhere in St. Louis, but they show up in the oddest places. Why Richmond VA? Am I missing something? What makes them St. Louis Ribs. Do they look like the Arch? Isn't that a wishbone?

I did stretch this morning. Does that count for anything? I cant wait until tomorrow is over. Take me away Calgon.

I did manage to eat mixed fruit this afternoon at the "snack time." When one goes on these training trips, the host provides meals and so it is a mind field to find healthy choices. So I made a cup of fruit, canteloupe, honeydew and strawberrys.

But the Ribs at dinner just killed all that. The choices were 12 oz steak, somekind of stuffed chicken breast (which sounded really scary), seafood pasta, and the ribs. I was scared of the steak because the establishment was a brewery and in St. Louis the brewery steak is no Ruth Chris steak. So I gambled. The steak looked great. It was not 12 oz which sounded huge. More like 6oz. How was I to know. And it looked like a "filet" which was not in the description.

Bring on tomorrow!

Day Fifty-Four

Very tired. Did not get to the gym. The hotel does not have one. But the Y is across the street up the way a little. So the goal is tomorrow am before my meetings begin. Did manage to have a turkcy sandwich for lunch and a couple of onion rings. Dinner was real crab cakes. Not ground up mush we get in Missouri.

Day Fifty-Three

I found this awesome book, Food Rules: An Eater's Manual by Michael Pollan at Target. I can't put this thing down. It's funny, and a quick read which is perfect for my ADD disorder. I will be blogging on it's themes here and there. The intro was really fun. The author is a journalist who has become obsessed with the subject of food and how it effects our health. Some of you may already know about this guy so be patient with me if you do. He says many things that I have tried to live.

And I will have a quote of the day or week, which will be a mix of foodisms, and whatnots, things that make us laugh etc. That will be coming soon. You will see some changes to the Blog over the next couple of days, weeks etc.

I did hit the gym yesterday morning. Today I will be traveling to Richmond VA until Thursday afternoon. So I will keep you up to date with how I do on this road trip. I will most certainly be consuming fish.

Day Fifty-Two: Loose Pants

How jeans fit seems to be a bane for everyone, but most especially for my wife. This may be true of all wives. I really have no clue since I only have one, which I can barely understand or handle anyway. I don't understand harems or polygamy. That alone would give me so much stress I'm sure I would die trying to keep them all happy.

Back to the jeans.....At one point in my life, I really liked Levi jeans. Straight legs were the best fitting as I recall. Now keep in mind I was 6 foot and weighed about 190 lbs so I was a lean Phoenix Bill love machine. I loved that style. And like all styles, they fell out of flavor.

Somewhere along the line jeans changed. Now they are thin, and designer jeans cost in the $150-$200 dollar range. Suz is obsessed with my jeans. Now don't get me wrong: She has every right to. I certainly like to tell her what to wear on certain occasions. The issue I have is that she buys me jeans, I put them on, and she swears she loves them and that I look great in them. And then, like her brownie disorder, a month later she declares she hates the jeans because they are falling off me. Ha Ha.

What is a husband to do? Shut up, agree, and let her buy me more jeans that eventually don't fit.

My general practice is that the "good fitting" jeans are worn on nights out. So the loose jeans become my hang around the house, or honey-do jeans; but then when I wear them doing that, I still get "the look". But I have learned to ignore it -- the look, that is. What am I supposed to wear around the house when I clean the gutters, repaint the rooms, clean the fireplace, and clean the basement? My $200 dollar jeans? Heck, I may as well go buy a tux and wear that around the house while I do all these jobs. In fact I might be able to get one for $150.00, complete with slacks, jacket, dress shirt, and bow tie. Ha Ha.

I could swear that when I was at Mizzou, I was the person who started the "pants on the ground" fad all the way back in the late 80's. (I sound like Al Gore.) When I came back from Phoenix, in the fall of 1986, I had a pair of jeans that no longer fit me. I had a new job in the snack bar @ the Hudson and Gillette dorms. I worked there 4 days a week at night until midnight. I would smell like burgers, nachos, cheese sandwiches, popcorn, corn dogs, fries, pretzels, you name it. I smelled awful. So I used my loose jeans.

And in those days I would not wear underwear -- commando as some say it today. Well, there were some fine young ladies, unbeknownst to me, that had a nickname for me -- in fact a couple of nicknames. One was "teddy bear" or "bear" because I was cute and strong looking. But the other name was "crack man" because my pants hung down so you could see my "plumber's" cleavage.

They all thought it was funny and in fact ordered food that would make me have to prepare it or get it from the storage so that they could see my "pants canyon." I did not know about this for a while until I started dating one of the young ladies, and she told me the entire 2nd floor of Gillette shared this fact about me with great delight. And here I thought they just liked my jovial personality. Once I learned that I was the butt of a joke (yuk, yuk), I bought some new pants that fit. But the joke continued.

I wish Suzanne would find the jean fitting issue funny. I have taken to wearing belts now so that it greatly reduces the canyon factor. This is very important now that I am a dad. Although I did catch Henry laughing at my pants one day when he was helping me with some chores.

Day Fifty-One

CLOSED.....COME BACK TOMORROW. This week I will talk about exercise; aerobic vs weight training.